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Vintage Set of the Week: 1965 Topps Embossed

Throughout the 1960s and early 70s, Topps experimented with a variety of pack inserts. From posters to story booklets to coins and decals you had to soak in water, they always kept the youngsters guessing. When cards began emerging from wax packs 60 years ago, the 1965 Topps Embossed set was unlike anything collectors of all ages had seen before. Today, it’s a big challenge for those building high-grade sets, but unpopular enough that even Hall of Famers in reasonably nice shape sell for far less than they probably should.

Inserted one per pack, the cards were more narrow than the standard Topps cards, measuring 2 1/8” by 3 ½”. Printed on a gold foil card stock similar to something you might see on a more modern set, there were 36 players from each league with blue backgrounds for American League players and red for National Leaguers. The ’embossed’ style art was popular at the time, but the raised profile images on cardboard were, at best, mediocre. Without the name and team identification on the front, it would have been difficult to identify each player. The backs contained only the card’s number and copyright information.

There’s no denying the number of star players on the checklist, though. There are 20 Hall of Famers and numerous stars and minor stars of a slightly lesser caliber. Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson are among the luminaries that are in the ’65 Embossed set, most of which can be had for a very reasonable price if you’re not a huge stickler for sharp corners.

And condition is a problem with the Embossed set, which is prone to scuffing and scratches on the inexpensive foil stock. For example, PSA has graded over 4,200 cards from the set without ever awarding a 10. In fact, there are only 57 unqualified 9s and less than 20% of the graded population rates even an 8. Still, high-grade examples don’t sell for what you might expect.

You can find a PSA 7 (near mint) Mantle on eBay for $125-150, about 4-5 times less than the regular issue Mantle card in the same grade, with far fewer high grade Embossed examples in the market.

Card #1 (Carl Yastrzemski) and #72 (Jack Kralick) are among the toughest to find in high-grade with Ron Fairly, Earl Battey, Bill White and Johnny Romano also proving virtually impossible at the NM/MT plateau.

Set prices vary widely by grade. At 72 cards, it’s not time-consuming unless you’re after an ultra-high end set. With so few high quality graded examples ever becoming available, it’s probably best to focus on something less than the best of the best. The fifth highest graded set on PSA’s Registry sold for $1,690 in June of 2013 with a very hard to get 7.62 average grade. However, an EX/MT set sold recently for $125, a typical price for a decent looking EX/NM type set that may still have some mild scuffing and corner wear. That’s not bad at a price of less than $2 per card including all of those Hall of Famers.

If you do look for graded examples, PSA 8 rated cards of Brooks Robinson, Ron Santo and Harmon Killebrew have traded in the $50 range, while an ungraded EX to EX/NM Mantle brought only $40 and a PSA 7 Mays was just slightly above that. In short, this is one set where you can own some cards of Hall of Famers in very nice shape for the price of a nice dinner for two. 1965 Topps Embossed cards are prevalent on eBay. See what’s available by clicking here.

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About Rich Mueller

Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for more than 30 years and a collector for even longer than that, he's usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected]